school funding: Bremerton, CK hang on ...

With nearly all ballots tallied, two districts appear certain of passing levies while a third has no chance.

An e-mail message sent to the Central Kitsap staff after election results were released said, "Irrepressible optimists begin celebrating."

Unofficial Totals:

Bremerton YES 60.09%

NO 39.91%

Central Kitsap YES 60.12%

NO 39.88%

South Kitsap YES 57.68%

NO 42.32%

By Elena Castaneda

Sun Staff

Some stories do have happy endings.

That's what supporters of the Central Kitsap school levy were saying Thursday when they received news that, yes, their levy had passed.

Out of 19,663 votes cast in the district's maintenance and operation levy, 60.12 percent supported the measure. It needed 60 percent to pass.

In Bremerton, meanwhile, support for a school levy slipped, but the measure was still passing by about seven votes with 60.09 percent support.

"It looks like we have fairly happy news for the school districts," Kitsap County Auditor Karen Flynn said.

There's a remote chance, she said, that the outcomes could change.

"There aren't a lot of ballots left to count, but there are some," she said. Remaining votes will be counted April 28 and two more times before the elections are certified on May 2.

Flynn figured there are fewer than 150 ballots remaining in Central Kitsap and fewer than 100 left in Bremerton.

"The trend in voting would have to be considerably altered in favor of the 'no' votes to change it at this time," she said of the Central Kitsap vote. "Bremerton is about the same ... but they're still real close."

"We're definitely not celebrating yet," said Walt Draper, Bremerton's director of finance and operations. "We're still extremely apprehensive but hopeful."

Central Kitsap's levy will collect $8.38 million in 1998 and $8.8 million in 1999. The projected levy rate is $2.75 per $1,000 of assessed property value.

Bremerton's levy will collect a total of $10,650,109 in 1998 and 1999. The estimated collection rate is $3.10 per $1,000 of assessed property value.

South Kitsap's levy is still failing, as officials expected it would be. The district South Kitsap will have to wait until next year to try to pass the measures again.

In the meantime, South Kitsap officials will be making $4.9 million in cuts to next school year's budget.

North Mason School District passed its measure Tuesday night with 62 percent voter support. The outcome's not expected to change, although a few remaining absentee votes will be counted when the election is certified.

Perhaps the most spectacular aspect of this week's election was Central Kitsap's comeback since the Feb. 4 election.

In February, the district received only 47 percent voter support, far below the 60 percent needed to pass school levies.

District officials, urged on by levy campaigners, decided to do something drastic to improve their chances of winning.

The entire election was done through the mail instead of at the polls. The change put ballots into the hands of all registered voters in Central Kitsap, and the result was almost 9,000 more votes cast this week than in February.

The levy campaign committee, Central Kitsap Citizens for Quality Education, also made some changes.

Levy supporters met twice on most nights since the February election, going from one PTA meeting to another or talking to people at the mall.

"We were making ourselves visible wherever people might have questions," said Lee Yeager, a community resident and supporter of the levy. "If we didn't have an answer for them at the time, we made a point to call them back."

Support for Central Kitsap's measure went up by about 13 percent over six weeks.

"Think about coming back like that. We increased our 'yes' vote count by 6,000 in six weeks. That took a lot of effort by a lot of people," he said.

An e-mail message was sent to the Central Kitsap staff Thursday after the new election results came out. It said, "Irrepressible optimists begin celebrating. Skeptics can join in tomorrow. Thanks and congratulations to everyone."

"When we walked out of the courthouse in February, most of us didn't believe this could happen," said Central Kitsap Superintendent Janet Barry.

Both Barry and Yeager said they're still concerned about future levies.

"I'm focused for the moment on the fact that it's a win and the district will not be forced to face the disaster of millions of dollars in budget cuts," Barry said.

"For the long term, there's still a tremendous amount of work to be done because it's right on the margin."

Yeager said levy campaigners will push for vote-by-mail elections in the future. And he says he's going to start campaigning for the next election today by thanking people who voted.

"The mistake we made after the last campaign in 1995," he said, "was that we thought the school district was making great strides, test scores were going up and Dr. Barry won the superintendent of the year award.

"Everything was going the way we wanted as a community, but we didn't continue to thank the community."

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